Personalities, Awards and Events

R. Nallakannu (1925–2026) Demise

February 28 , 2026 228 days 976 0

R. Nallakannu, senior leader of the Communist Party of India (CPI), passed away on 25 February 2026 in Chennai at the age of 101 and was accorded State honours.
R. Nallakannu was a leader of the CPI and served as the Tamil Nadu State Secretary for three terms from 1992.
He was born in 1925 in Srivaikundam, Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu, and joined the Indian freedom movement as a school student.
In 1949, he was arrested in the Nellai Conspiracy Case, which alleged that Communist leaders planned to overthrow the Government led by Jawaharlal Nehru.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Nellai Conspiracy Case along with K. Balathandayutham, P. Manikkam, I. Mayandibharathi, and many others.
He was released from prison in 1956.
He lived underground when the Communist Party was banned by the British government and later by the Congress government led by Jawaharlal Nehru.
In 1964, when the Communist movement in India split after the Indo-China War, he chose to remain with the CPI.
In 1999, he contested the Lok Sabha election from Coimbatore as a CPI candidate and lost to C. P. Radhakrishnan of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He led a campaign against illegal sand mining in the Thamirabarani river basin and, in 2010, filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Madras High Court, where he personally argued the case and obtained a stay order against sand mining.
On 15 August 2022, he received the ‘Thagaisal Thamizhar’ award from the Government of Tamil Nadu, presented by M. K. Stalin, and he donated ₹10 lakh along with ₹5,000 of his own money to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund.